I have a huge field of wheat next to my house this year and I was wondering what I needed to do to make it ready to brew with. Not that the farmer is gong to like me taking some of his wheat, but he'll never notice.
Do I simply need to dry it out or are there some other steps I will need to do???

I do not know much at all about wheat beer. I always heard that the WIT beer, or belgian white were done with raw wheat, so I have to assume that other wheat beers are malted somehow. I would think that you would have to swipe many of seed heads to make a batch of beer. Farmers kill turkeys, and deer for doing similar things.

ahhh, the true nature of the homebrewer - to take raw nature and transform it into liquid bliss.....

Wheat is used (primarily) in three two old-world beer styles - Belgian Wit and German WEizen. The Former uses UNMALTED wheat, and the latter uses MALTED wheat.....You most likely cannot malt - or, not to be presumptuous, I can't help you here. You can, however - at least theoretically - make a nice Wit by raiding the field.....

I have made a number of good Wits, and all the wheat was FLAKED.....like oatmeal......can anyone help us on how to make flaked wheat out of wheat berries????????

It has always been my understanding, that flaked grains were heated to the point of "popping" like pop corn. They could then be rolled as in rolled oats, or used as puffed oats, wheat, rice, corn, etc.
As stated before, I tend to use adjuncts sparingly, so I am not an expert on this. You will still need a high modified barley, to add the needed enzymes.

That may indeed work.....I'll have to "google" it to find out specifics....and yes, need malted barley for enzymes......A traditional wit is 50% malted barley, 45% unmalted wheat, and 5% flaked oats.......

Thanks for the replies. I am looking for more info on what I would actually need to do with the wheat to prep it. I think to flake it I would have to soak the grains a little before squishing them, although I'm not sure. And I think if you heat and pop them then they would be torrified wheat.
So if anyone has more specifics that would be great. I also need to try to figure out what would be the most opportune time for harvesting the wheat, since I really have no way of actually measuring the moisture content. I guess I just pick a really nice moonlit night and have at it....

fitz wrote:It has always been my understanding, that flaked grains were heated to the point of "popping" like pop corn. They could then be rolled as in rolled oats, or used as puffed oats, wheat, rice, corn, etc.

I used raw wheat, kindly given by a farmer (asking is better than steal).
A few kilograms compared to tons is a very little for them, especially if you promise to give him back a few bottles.

Raw wheat is traditionnaly used for witbiers or white beers or "biere blanche" from Belgium. Based on a mix of malt and raw wheat, bitter orange peals, and crushed coriander. It's a light, troubled and fresh beer, with one of the well known commercial exemple : Hoegarden. Widely served in Belgium and France.

I used to simply crush it, mixed with malted barleys (dry raw wheat is much more hard to crush alone) and add to my batch in a 50% part with Pilsen malt.

Some of my homebrewers friends pretend you should cook it appart from the malt in order to transform the starch and make it available for the malt enzymes before starting the mash steps.

I did not, and obtained very good results with a very light, fresh and spicy beer, very pleasant in summer days. served fresh of course.

Mirabeau wrote:Some of my homebrewers friends pretend you should cook it appart from the malt in order to transform the starch and make it available for the malt enzymes before starting the mash steps.

I did not, and obtained very good results with a very light, fresh and spicy beer, very pleasant in summer days. served fresh of course.

Out of curiosity, how good was your Extract Efficiency or Mash Efficiency without cooking the raw wheat?

I'm curious about your mash efficiency as well. I've always been of the understanding that if you are not using flaked(pre-gelatinized) grains or adjuncts then you must perform a separate cereal mash in order to gelatinize the starches and make them available for conversion by the enzymes. I've brewed several beers with raw adjuncts but if you've found a way to eliminate the cereal mash step, then please tell me.